Dateline February 22, 2015 and we are working towards many events this year for the members and family of our clan.

We are working with Vision Quest to bring a special day of cultural and craft making instruction to our members. I will report on that later when I get details.

We have requested funding from Heritage Canada for our Aboriginal Day (June 21) ceremonies this year. We have secured the courtyard at Barrie City Hall for the event and are looking for musical and cultural displays for it. We would love to have a drum circle, some costumed dancers and a Metis fiddler in attendance. It is a Sunday. If anyone reads this and is interested in showing off your culture and skills, please contact me by email (on the site). We hope to have a "naming ceremony" during the event.

On July 11, we will be holding our first annual Clan gathering at Centennial Park in Innisfil. It will be a potlatch style but we will be seeking donations from our local grocers for some hotdogs and other things. This will be over the lunch period from about 1030 am to 3 pm or longer. Games for kids, etc.

Be sure to check up on us and be sure to visit our beautiful website which my brother Art has built for us. Check out the pix, the history and even his music videos (they may not be native, but some are pretty cool)  http://awaptc.weebly.com/

Its been a while since I last posted but I have been busy. Today, November 2, 2013, the Algonquin Woodland Aboriginal Peoples Tribal Council met for its first Annual General Assembly. The Assembly was held in Barrie beginning at 10 am. As it was our first and we are still small, we were finished by noon.

The Council provided coffee and Tim Bits for the attendees.

Renee Lowe, our Youth Coordinator was in charge of the smudging ceremony today. We were pleased to have Renee and her younger brother, William, among the full members in attendance today.

We discussed items including our up coming flag raising on 15 November at Barrie City Hall and the follow up on November 16 at the Barrie Farmer's Market where we will have an information booth set up in a very high profile position manned by the Chief, the Registrar, the Grand Chief and the Clan Mother and our Youth Coordinator (who will receive credit for her high school "volunteer" hours).

We also discussed our first annual "Winter Solstice Festival" get together which will occur on January 11, 2014 (trying to avoid the Christmas crush).

We struck committees to review and suggest revisions to our constitution, to investigate and organize an event for Aboriginal Day 2014 and to prepare and operate our election for the Executive for May 2014.

Over all, it was a good first AGA and I thank all of those who participated.

Of course, I would like to acknowledge our Vice-Chief, Roger Kent who generously has provided funding for the  hosting of our new website and to acknowledge the efforts (ongoing) of our Registrar, Art Lowe, who has done the bulk of the work and continues to do so on building the website. Drop in to visit it and be sure to tell others too.

 http://awaptc.weebly.com/

MiiGwetch
 

Saturday, September 28th was a great day! It was the day of my naming ceremony. The weather was near perfect. About 50 or so friends and family came out to help me celebrate my "better day". Four of my community members decided to join me by receiving their new names on my day. I considered this to be an honour for me to have them join in.

From Saturday on, my new name within my community will be Kas Tchay Pah No Ho Muskwa or "Big Bear Running". My brother Art is now to be known as "Grey Wolf", my Vice-Chief, Roger Kent will be known as "Laughing Waters". My niece, Susan is to be known as "Walks with Animals" and my grandson William will be known as "Laughing Wolf".

Each name was decided upon by the individual based upon what he or she felt was right.

The Grand Chief of AWMAT,  and our Clan Mother performed the rituals. The "Circle of Friends" drummed for us and presented both Art and me with the greatest honour we could hope for, an Eagle feather. This was such an honour that I was quite choked up and virtually speechless (for me, that is a major thing).

Five of my co-worker friends and some of their family came up from Toronto to share my day. Friends from near and far came. I was honoured by the presence of the Hon. Tony Clement, President of the Treasury Board of Canada, Patrick Brown, MP for Barrie and Rid Jackson, MPP for Barrie. I was presented with a lovely certificate of congratulations from Patrick Brown.

A film crew attended, brought up by my friend Roger Nair, owner of Roger Nair Productions and Lionheart Productions. It's Roger's intent to produce a documentary about Canada's native peoples and he hopes to use this event as the center point of the documentary.

The event was a huge success on many fronts however, none of this could ever have happened if it were not for the love and support of my beautiful non aboriginal wife, Sandra. Sandra worked so hard to ensure my guests were comfortable and fed. She worked selflessly to make sure my day went well. I thank the Creator that he has seen fit to provide me such a wonderful wife and I thank that wonderful wife for all she has done and continues to do. I love her so much.

My big day is coming closer, just one week from tomorrow. I have had a great bit of news, that is I have the honour of having a ladies drum circle attending the event and drumming for us. This is so cool. The long  term weather forecast is perfect so I am keeping my fingers crossed for the day. I hope to have a great turn out for the event.

The Counsel is busy making the necessary amendments to the constitution which will be presented tot he membership at the Annual General Assembly. In the meantime, Jim Lowe is working on our communications strategy, developing a new Facebook page and a Twitter account. Jim has agreed to take on this role and will be named Director of Communications for the Counsel.

Barbara Lowe (Midland) has decided to join a women's drum circle led by a member of the Metis Nation of Ontario. We hope to hear more about that in the future.

The planning is coming along fine for the "naming ceremonies" being held on my "Better Day" of September 28. Although this is "my day" and my naming ceremony will be done individually and first, I have invited other members who wish to partake in the ceremonies to do so. So far, we have 4 members who wish to be officially named on my day. If you are interested in joining in, please let me know no later than Friday 13th September to get it to the Grand Chief in time (requires a bio of your public service work in particular). If you have not received an invitation to the event and wish to attend, contact me through my email at david.lowe1950@gmail.com and tell me all about yourself. We have room for a maximum number of 60 and are very close to that number now. This may be filmed for posterity so if you have any finery of an indigenous style to wear, sashes, ribbon shirts and so on, this is the day to wear it.

New membership cards are being produced so it is time for each of us to pay our dues. Our fiscal year begins June 21 (Aboriginal Day) at which tie, annual dues should be in to Art Lowe. If you have not yet paid since June 21, please do so asap.

I recently spent about a week on the road, vacation time, with my wife, my brother and my sister-in-law. We traveled to Quebec City where we spent a few days enjoying the history and cuisine of the region. I took the opportunity to locate a nearby reservation, the Huron-Wendake reserve. The have a very nice little interpretation center ($12 per person) where one gets a good glimpse of how life was in the longhouse of 400 years ago. I learned something there which surprised me. I was always under the impression that the Huron, as a nation and a culture, were gone, decimated and destroyed by their arch enemies, the Iroquois. Wrong! About 300 Huron escaped the massacres and moved far from Huronia to the woodlands of Lower Canada (Quebec) where over the centuries, they have grown to a few thousand. The reserve was very well maintained, sporting many good businesses, their own police force and beautiful homes. They are doing well and I am sure would make an excellent model for many of the reserves across Canada which are not fortunate. This short side-trip to me was the highlight of my tour. At one point, as the Huron guide was leading the group about, I chuckled to myself as he explained to some out of country visitor why some of the people in photos on site "didn't look Indian", which pretty much describes me and 80% of my family members. He gave a rather good, albeit simplified explanation of the quantum of blood theory and mixed marriages. As I said, I chuckled to myself wondering what these Europeans would think if they knew that haof the people in the group they were part of, were Indigenous too.

Algonquin Woodland Aboriginal Peoples' Tribal Council: This is the blog site for the Algonquin Woodland ...

Algonquin Woodland Aboriginal Peoples' Tribal Council: This is the blog site for the  Algonquin Woodland ...: This is the blog site for the  Algonquin Woodland Aboriginal Peoples' Tribal Council, formerly known as the Huronia Aboriginal Peoples&#...